Filmmaker talks education

Updated 7:27 pm, Friday, June 28, 2013

Andrew Jenks documents the life of young adults in his MTV show and has recently published his autobiography.

Andrew Jenks documents the life of young adults in his MTV show and has recently published his autobiography.

Photo: Getty Images

Filmmaker talks education

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In the face of reality television series such as “Real World,” “Snooki and JWOWW” and “Teen Mom,” documentary filmmaker Andrew Jenks is bringing real life to MTV with his show “World of Jenks.” In each episode, the 27-year-old documents the story of a young adult, with subjects ranging from a homeless girl to a platinum-selling recording artist.

Jenks recently published his autobiography, “Andrew Jenks: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker,” and he is launching the All-American High School Film Festival. He was in San Antonio last week to take part in a panel at the International Society for Technology in Education Conference and Exposition. The panel, brought together by Dell, addressed incorporating arts, technology and entrepreneurship into the K-12 curriculum.

In an interview with the Express-News, Jenks discussed how he got his start in filmmaking and why he thinks the public education system needs to change.

Q: Why did you decide to participate in this year's ISTE Conference and Exposition?

A: I spoke over the past few years at probably over 30 colleges and hundreds of high schools, and so one theme or one topic that kind of struck a chord with me after all of that traveling and talking and learning and living with, I guess, millennials ... is just how education in this country is a bit backwards, and it needs some serious help. I thought this was a great opportunity for me more than anything to just learn about what different people in the education world are doing.

Q: What do you believe is the best way to encourage students to think creatively?

A: I feel like a lot of times it's feeling comfortable — that it's OK to think creatively. I think a lot of times you're sort of pushed to kind of stay inside the box so that your peers don't make fun of you. ... So I think trying our best to encourage students to be who they are and not be so concerned about what their peers think is something that I feel like this generation is doing a better job of. Like, there was the whole anti-bullying campaign that's been going on and the documentary, so I think all that will help students feel like they're being supported in whatever capacity they're hoping to excel at.

Q: What steps could educators take to incorporate arts, technology and entrepreneurship into K-12 curriculum?

A: I wouldn't want to tell a teacher what to do ... but from my interactions with students and what they tell me it would be different ways that you can make it relatable and how it could be adapted into real-life situations ... so I think students these days are more interested in how do you take in content, how do you understand it, how do you tell other people, communicate and then also simple things we kind of overlook like how do you manage, how do you assimilate, how to adapt. I think these are all important features or talents that are required in this day and age.

Q: What solidified your decision to become a filmmaker?

A: When I was at college at NYU, I was a freshman. I was at a dorm, and I was living with 300 kind of strangers in this dorm room, and while that was happening my grandfather had dementia and was living in a nursing home also with 300 strangers ... I felt really compelled to make a movie about senior citizens in a nursing home ... So I moved down to Florida the summer after freshman year and made that documentary ... and then it started playing at different film festivals, and one day HBO called. ... HBO ended up buying it, and it played all over the world, and that's when I was like, “OK, I'm going to go for this.”

Q: What was your inspiration?

A: My parents probably more than anything. My dad worked for the United Nations, so he was always dealing with global affairs, and my mom worked for a little, tiny public health center in a really tough neighborhood like five minutes from my house, and so at dinner I would sit there with my parents, and my dad would be talking about genocide in Africa and my mom, a nurse practitioner at this local public health center, would be talking about a poor Ecuadorian guy who didn't have the money for a shot that could've saved his son's life. ... I think they inspired me more than anything. I think the storytelling part of me, I guess, that's just who I am, but what kind of stories I want to tell I feel like stems very much from those dinner table conversations.”

Q: What is your biggest piece of advice for young filmmakers?

A: There's never been a time period in the history of the world where someone who's interested in telling stories through film or TV could have better access to doing so. ... Students will say how should I make a film, and I just bust this thing out (he takes out his smartphone), and I'm like you have a phone. ... (The video) looks just like the very expensive cameras that we have.”